Strong Enough to Break
by Acacia Carter
Summary: It had been three years since his wife's death, but the first woman to make him feel something is the last woman he'd have thought. The fact that he's closer in age to her father than to her does not help matters.
1. One

It was that time of night when the barman started shooting pointed looks at the patrons still lingering over their cups. Some of the patrons were still sober enough to notice this and take their cue to leave. The others would require more blunt hints that it was time for the pub to close.

And the one in the corner, well. He got special treatment. He was allowed to stay as late as he wanted, even past closing - except he never wanted to put anyone out like that. Usually a tap on the shoulder and a gentle "It's closing time, Professor" was enough for him to gather himself if he had been crying (though he was good at hiding it if he had been) and exit. He never drank to excess and rarely spoke to the other patrons, or even the other servers. The barman himself often brought him his single tumbler of firewhisky and left him alone for the rest of the evening.

He'd been coming in at half nine and staying until closing every Friday evening for the past three years. Until Molly had begun working at The Leaky Cauldron a few months ago, she'd had no idea. Professor Longbottom had always seemed so content and grounded. Although, in hindsight, she supposed she could remember the change between the Professor Longbottom at the end of her fifth year and the Professor Longbottom at the beginning of her sixth. He had been much quieter that September, his eyes somehow softer and sadder. Classes were still fun, but in a more subdued way. At first Molly had thought it was because N.E.W.T. classes were meant to be more serious, but then she'd heard the whispers through the school.

His wife had killed herself when she lost their baby, some said; his wife had died in childbirth, others would intone with sombre authority. No, his wife wanted a divorce. His parents had died and a paperwork problem had kept St Mungo's from notifying him until it was too late to say goodbye. The rumours were almost as numerous as the students whispering them, and discovering the truth would be nearly impossible.

She'd been too scared to approach him and ask the real reason, or if anything had happened at all. It was far safer to keep a distance, and if he was hurting, he hid it well around his students. Well enough, anyway, that Molly had felt confident in her decision to ignore it. Seventh year had come and gone, she had got her N.E.W.T. in Herbology and the three other classes she'd taken, and she had assumed it would never come up again.

But her father was insistent upon her keeping herself occupied and gainfully employed after her year-long internship at her mother's old governmental offices in America. There were no job opportunities in the Ministry at the moment, and the Leaky was one of the only places willing to hire a young woman with no other practical experience whatsoever, so here she was. And every Friday evening, there Professor Longbottom was with his tumbler of firewhisky and distant eyes.

The last of the late patrons had weaved their way to the door, and Molly had finished wiping down the tables and putting the chairs up. A glance to the corner told her that the Professor was still there, staring into his empty glass tumbler. She leaned over the bar and gestured to the barman.

"He looks more... intense tonight."

The barman looked over and then nodded shortly. "It would've been their wedding anniversary today." Molly stared blankly. The barman's eyes widened. "You don't know?" She shook her head. "Damn. I thought..." The barman shook his head and took down a bottle to polish. "His wife used to be landlady here," he said in an undertone that Molly had to lean close to hear. "Every Friday night, they'd have a drink in that corner booth. Weekends, he'd help her tend bar. You'd have to be an idiot to not see they were mad for each other, and it was never going to stop, like it does in some marriages."

Molly resisted the urge to turn and look at the Professor in the corner. "What happened?"

"She died," the barman said simply. "Went into labour too early, haemorrhaged to death, and the baby died with her." He nodded in the Professor's direction. "He's technically landlord now, but he doesn't run the place. Hired someone else to do it. Doesn't live here anymore, either. Too many memories." The bottle the barman was polishing was so clean it gleamed; the barman stared at the reflection for a moment before placing it back on its shelf. "And yet he still comes here every Friday to get his usual, as though she'll be joining him as soon as I come in for my shift."

He put the bottle back on the shelf. "I'm watching my friend's dog, otherwise I'd stay. Lock up the common room once he's left. Leave the key with the night housekeeper."

Molly nodded numbly as he handed her a key. So there had been a kernel of truth to some of the rumours. Somehow, knowing that something had happened and she'd done nothing made her insides twist with guilt. Even telling herself that there was nothing she could have done did not take away the sting.

She turned the iron key over in her hand a few times before sighing and walking over to the corner booth quietly.

"Professor?" she said gently. He jumped as though startled, looking up guiltily to meet her eyes.

"Miss Weasley." He looked around the empty common room. "Oh. Time to go, then?"

"You don't have to," Molly said hurriedly. "Spencer gave me the key. I can wait until you're ready to go."

The Professor shook his head and braced a hand on the table to get up. "I wouldn't imagine keeping you out so late -"

"Professor," Molly said, putting her hand over his to halt him. "Please. I'm already here and I don't have anywhere important to go. Stay, if you're not done yet."

The Professor hesitated, then tapped the side of his tumbler. It rang with the clear chime of good crystal. "I've been done a good while."

"I can get you another. If you want." She'd never made him his drink but she still knew it by heart. It had never before occurred to her to wonder why she paid such close attention to the details that surrounded his weekly visits.

The Professor's eyes seemed to slide out of focus slightly in consideration. "I don't want to be any trouble," he began.

"You're not. I promise."

The Professor did not drink Ogden's. The bottle his firewhisky was from did not have a label or a year or, as far as Molly could tell, a name. The stopper smelled of smoke and caramelised sugar that lingered thickly in the air like decadent perfume as she carefully poured into another tumbler. Five drops of water, a pause to let them swirl through the liquor, and then five more. Just enough to release the bouquet. Her father had taught her to drink whiskies of all sorts; she could deeply appreciate the notes she could detect in the aroma alone.

"Pour yourself one, too."

Molly spun around. "Hmm?"

The Professor was sitting back in the bench of the booth, studying the cut crystal of his tumbler. "If you're staying on my account, no reason you shouldn't have a bit as well."

Molly felt herself flush for no good reason. She was used to patrons offering to buy her a drink, but that was in overt flirtation, not... whatever this offer was. A request for simple human company? She was positive that these were the most words he'd ever said in one night before, and she could not work out why it was her he was saying them to. "I couldn't - I mean, this is your bottle -"

"Stands to reason I can share it with who I want, then." He threw a glance her way and she nearly flinched at how hollow his eyes were. "I insist."

Hesitantly, Molly took down another tumbler and poured herself a finger - not nearly as much as was in the Professor's glass. She was well aware that the little she had poured herself was still probably worth what she made in an entire shift. She added a trickle of water, stoppered the bottle, and put it back in its place in the dark cupboard under the bar.

"Thank you," the Professor said simply as Molly set the glass down before him. If he noticed the disparity between the volumes of the two glasses, he made no indication.

Awkwardly, Molly slid onto the bench opposite him, not sure what to do next. For his part the Professor took a long sip of his firewhisky, closing his eyes as he held the liquor on his tongue before swallowing. When he opened his eyes he did not meet Molly's, but stared into the depths of the glass.

The silence hung around them like a cloak, its folds settling on their shoulders in an almost tangible way. Upstairs, someone shuffled about in their rented room. The night housekeeper was making her rounds two floors above that, her shoes echoing down the stairwell. In the common room, still merrily lit with dozens of lamps and the fireplace at each end, the quiet hummed.

"I heard you talking to Spencer."

Molly nearly jumped out of her skin. The Professor was studying her calmly, eyes tight around the corners. Not knowing what else to do, Molly nodded.

"I wasn't aware that you didn't already know." A slow sip, barely wetting his lips.

Molly cleared her throat. "I didn't want to pry. I... heard a lot of things. When it happened, I mean. But I never got the truth of it and I didn't feel right..." She dropped her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It wasn't something I would have discussed with students, at any rate."

"No, I mean - I'm sorry it happened." She could feel her brow wrinkle. "Maybe 'sorry' isn't the right word."

The Professor nodded. "You mean sympathy, but that word usually doesn't fit very well with the other words we want to say. And 'my sympathies' sounds trite anyway." He took another sip of his firewhisky. "I heard that one a lot. 'You have my sympathies'. I felt like I was being attacked by a greeting card shop."

At a loss for what else to say, even if she knew the word now, Molly lifted her tumbler and sniffed at the firewhisky before taking a hesitant sip. Quite of their own accord, her eyes went wide. "Oh my," she said a moment later as she lowered the tumbler to the tabletop.

"Good, yeah?" The Professor tipped his tumbler in her direction in a casual toast.

"It's lovely." She resisted the urge to take another sip. "In fact, lovely doesn't do it justice. What is it?"

"Peverell Twenty-Five," the Professor replied promptly. "Ancient, family-run distillery. They put out one cask a year. The Leaky has been buying that cask for the last two hundred years." A slim hint of a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. "I'm just barely selfish enough to monopolise one of the bottles from it."

Molly mentally increased the worth of the firewhisky in her glass by a factor of ten as she took another, very small sip. She had the feeling that she'd never taste something like this ever again.

"I wouldn't have pegged you as a whisky drinker," the Professor said offhandedly.

"Nor I you," Molly countered. "I would have thought ale. Or absinthe."

"Absinthe? Really?" His puzzled smile looked quite at odds with the dark circles beneath his eyes.

Molly felt herself flush. "Well - I mean - I never knew you outside of the context as my Herbology professor," she said, stumbling toward an explanation. "And absinthe's a very herbal sort of drink, and you always had liquorice snaps in a jar on your desk. So if you like liquorice, you probably like absinthe..." she trailed off when she realised she was babbling.

"I'm surprised you noticed the liquorice." He sounded amused, though it didn't touch his face. "I don't recall you spending much time in my office."

"Twice. Once when I was taking advisory for my N.E.W.T.s, and once when you were signing off on my Herbological Society Alumnus certificate." Now why did she remember that so clearly? "I noticed because I like liquorice, and most people don't."

The Professor nodded thoughtfully. "I'd have thought you a vodka girl. Not in juice or anything like that, just straight vodka. The good kind, the stuff kept under the bar. The kind worth drinking on its own." His lips made a wry twist. "_Not_ that I spend time analysing what liquor my students are most likely to enjoy, of course. Just an observation, since you started working here." He leaned back, lips pursed as though considering what else to say. "When I'm not here, I do enjoy absinthe," he said finally. "If it's mixed with a liberal dash of brandy. But here..." He reached forward and lifted his tumbler in demonstration.

The tiniest emphasis on the word here made something fall into place in Molly's mind. "It's what you would drink together on Fridays, wasn't it?"

The Professor's face went blank so quickly that it made Molly's stomach wrench, and she had never wanted to pluck her words out of the air more. "Yes," he said finally. "It was."

There was a pause so long, the Professor completely motionless, that Molly thought he was done talking for good, but then he picked up the glass and studied it. "Not the last few months she was alive, of course," he said, and it sounded as though he was reciting something by rote. "The last few months were sarsaparilla. We joked about it. She said I was being gallant for giving up whisky entirely while she was pregnant, and it wasn't a compliment. Called me a 'bloody Gryffindor' a fair few times." The next sip was long, and nearly emptied his glass. "I thought about giving it up entirely, after..." he said softly, almost as though he were speaking to himself. "But then she would never have approved of that." Molly lifted her own tumbler to her lips, not wanting to have to rush to finish when he was done.

"So what have you been doing with yourself?" the Professor asked abruptly. It was clear that he was done with the previous topic.

Molly shrugged offhandedly. "I spent a year in an internship in America. My mum used to work for one of the Senators of the Wizarding government there, and she pulled some strings."

"A year? Has it been that long since you graduated?" The Professor shook his head. "How did you like it?"

"It was fantastic. It was the first time I was actually treated like an adult." She felt like wincing at the childish-sounding words. "Can't get a proper cuppa for love or money, though."

That earned an amused snort; Molly felt something inside her soar at having brought a smile to his face, however brief or small. "I went on holiday in America once, in the Sonora Desert. Fascinating plants there. But I imagine you had other things to think about."

"No, I - yes, I want to go into politics," Molly said earnestly, "but Herbology's still my hobby. I had a window garden at my flat, and I went hiking when I could. Even the mundane plants over there are incredible."

"They are," the Professor agreed. "Whereabouts were you? Because there was one - Mala mujer - gods, that's a wonderful plant. Painful, but wonderful."

Molly smiled; he reminded her of the old Professor Longbottom, passionately lecturing about one plant or another. "I was in the Northwest corner. And I had a run-in of my own with a painful plant; have you heard of poison oak?"

The Professor actually groaned, for an instant flashing the first genuine smile she'd seen on him since she'd known him as the sad man in the corner booth. "I don't envy you even a little bit." He picked up his tumbler and drained it, then looked at it with a mild expression of surprise, as though he was not expecting it to already be gone. Within moments his cheerful demeanour drained from him, and he gently set the tumbler back down on the tabletop.

Molly savoured the last sip from her own glass, then stood and gathered the three tumblers on the table. "Thank you. For the drink," she added quickly. "It was really very good."

The Professor nodded. "How are you getting home?" he asked suddenly, after she'd turned to go rinse the glassware at the bar.

She turned back around. "Oh, I have a broom. I don't Apparate."

He raised an eyebrow. "There's no way I'm letting you ride a broom across London at this time of night, alone."

Molly let slip a disbelieving laugh. "Are you my father now? I'm twenty years old, and I've ridden home far later than this before."

"I know your father," the Professor said seriously, "and he'd have my head if I didn't see you home properly after keeping you out this late."

This time the laugh was intentional. "It's not as though you're bringing me back from a date past curfew," she said, and if she didn't know better, she'd have thought one of his eyebrows twitched at the words. "I was at work late. It happens from time to time. The broom has a built-in Disillusionment Charm, I'll be fine."

"It's below freezing out there. Let me spare you the chill, at least."

Molly bit her lip in consideration. It _was_ bitterly cold, and it had been snowing off and on since six. She had not been looking forward to the ride home, even if it was only fifteen minutes. "Give me a moment to rinse these and lock up," she said finally. "I'll meet you outside."

After a cursory rinse, the glasses were not precisely clean, but it was alcohol - it wasn't as though they weren't sanitary. And really, even the trace remnants of that firewhisky would improve anything that was poured into those tumblers. She turned the key until she heard the bolt throw, left it on its nail by the door for the night housekeeper to pick up, and stepped out into the frigid December air.

"That was quick," the Professor commented, drawing his wand from his thick woollen overcloak.

"There wasn't much to do," she replied. She suddenly felt very shy. He was going to Apparate with her Side-Along, which meant she'd be taking his arm, but should she just take it, or wait for him to offer? It was not something that happened often, and she was unaware of the etiquette, if there was any. And then, of course, he was - or had been - her teacher, but somehow that perception had shifted and he wavered between Professor Longbottom and... she wasn't quite sure what. Another adult she knew, if only a little bit. Certainly not enough to simply grab his arm without invitation.

He saved her from certain mortification by offering his arm as he asked her the address. She told him, and he looked thoughtful for a moment as he tried to puzzle out where it was, then nodded and placed his hand over hers on his arm.

"Are you ready?"

Molly swallowed, very aware that she was unable to tell whether the jump in her stomach was due to his hand on hers or the anticipation of the suffocating compression of Apparition. "As I'll ever be."

It was every bit as unpleasant as she remembered it being; as she staggered against the gate at their landing, she wondered privately to herself why anyone would ever prefer this as a mode of travel. "Thank you," she managed over the complaints of her stomach.

"Of course." The Professor cleared his throat, and Molly looked up, surprised to see that he looked decidedly out of sorts. "I... know you were just doing your job, but... thank you. I don't think I realised how much I needed company tonight."

The queasiness in her stomach forgotten, Molly nodded. "I wasn't just doing my job, otherwise I'd have just kicked you out," she said before she could even consider whether the words were wise. "Anytime you need someone..."

The silence stretched for a very long time as they stood in the cold, looking at one another. Molly knew she should look away and bid him goodnight, but she felt frozen, and it had nothing to do with the cold.

An owl hooted in a tree nearby, and the moment shattered. Molly cleared her throat. "Good night, Professor." She opened the gate and had stepped through before she heard his response.

"I'm not really your professor any longer. If... if you wanted, you could use my given name." A pause, and though her back was turned, she could see the crooked grin in her mind. "You've more or less earned it, listening to me babble on tonight."

Molly could not fathom the mix of emotions that washed over her, nor could she explain why her mouth had gone suddenly dry. Were she of a more irrational mind, she could have blamed it on the firewhisky; being more reasonable than that, she knew it was unlikely. Rather than let the silence grow again, she glanced over her shoulder before she became immobilised by her own indecision.

He did not look like Professor Longbottom. Professor Longbottom wore khaki work robes with the Hogwarts crest on the breast, when he bothered to wear robes at all, and had a penetrating, sardonic gaze that somehow spoke volumes as to why he did not care about her excuse for not finishing her essay. He did not stand in the snow in front of her parents' house in a wool cloak and an inexplicably hopeful expression on his face, illuminated from the back by the single flickering street lamp.

She licked her lips. The moisture cooled immediately in the late winter night air. "Good night... Neville. Thank you."

Neville's face was unreadable. "Good night, Molly. And thank_ you_."

The snow swirled as he Disapparated. Molly stared at the space where he had been, ignoring the chill of the air around her.

Her mind was a complete jumble. It was not worth the effort to sort it out tonight. It wasn't until she was pulling her blankets over her that she allowed herself a moment to contemplate the taste that still lingered in her mouth, the remnants of fine firewhisky and the somehow soft contours of Neville's name.


	2. Two

Friday evening was not a time for drunkenness. Friday evening was a time for solitary reflection, surrounded by everything he'd once known except the one thing that actually mattered, a reminder that everything had changed. Everything had moved on, and so had he, even if he didn't want to.

Three o'clock in the morning on Saturday following such musings, however, was the perfect time for a good, maudlin drunk.

The glass Neville took down from the shelf was not at all like the fine cut crystal at the pub. It was a plain, utilitarian glass with a heavy bottom. Hannah, who had known her liquors and how to serve them, would have scoffed. That was mostly why he'd bought them. They reminded him of her the least.

In fact, everything in the flat had been chosen with similar care, the care of someone who desperately wanted to forget. Not of regret or anger - it did not have that passion. A person would look around this flat and feel... not a loss, because she'd never been here, never run her fingers along the fringe of the blanket over the arm of the chair or straightened a picture frame. A lack. There was a feeling of something missing, even though everything that would ever be here was here already. There was no space for someone else. Which was, of course, the entire point.

The whisky he sloshed into the glass was not particularly good, some Muggle bottle that was cheap and only barely on this side of drinkable. It didn't need to be good, it just needed to be strong. He tossed back the first glass with the practised air of a man who had done this many, many times before, suppressing the shudder at the burn of the alcohol as he poured himself another.

He would not need as much tonight, he realised. He'd had two glasses earlier, and though some time had passed he could still feel the warmth in his cheeks. And, he mused, looking into the depths of the amber liquor, he didn't really have any reason to hurry. There were no essays to mark, no lessons to plan for the following Monday, nothing to worry about for another three weeks when the Christmas holidays were over.

Nothing to distract him for three weeks, either. He chose to ignore that.

Draining the second glass was easier. The dull numbness had already claimed the tip of his nose and his coordination was perhaps a bit slower than usual as he tipped the bottle over the glass a third time, the neck knocking against the rim gracelessly. He brought the glass over to his chair and sank down, perfunctorily jabbing his wand at the fireplace. The fire roared to life and then quieted in a sudden hush, leaving him with the shifting embers that he preferred to watch over the dancing flames.

He sat. Just sat. The whisky in his hand wasn't even so much to drink as just hold, swirling occasionally to watch the liquor cling to the walls of the glass before receding back to the bottom. There was no rule saying that one couldn't think during a good, maudlin drunk, after all.

And he had a good deal to think about, and a good deal to try desperately not to think about. Often, the latter consisted of memories from years ago, the ones that he had taken out and examined so many times that they were starting to tear at the creases and fade. The ones that he had to have severely impaired judgement to let to the forefront of his mind.

But tonight, those memories would have been welcome, rather than the fresh new ones that clamoured for his attention. The feeling of a hand on his arm. The sound of a female voice saying his name, shyly, hesitantly.

Oh, Ginny said his name. Hermione said his name. They said it with the comfort of old friends, with all the years they'd known each other behind it. His colleagues said his name, from time to time. But their voices were familiar, and had the velvet edge of a much-thumbed-through book.

Her voice, saying his name, had felt like the first crack of the spring thaw in the ice of the lake.

And he did not want to think about it.

Twenty, she'd said. Well, yes, that would be about right - she had a birthday in September, if he recalled correctly, which would make her one of the oldest students in her year, nearly nineteen when she left school. And in her year away she'd become someone he couldn't imagine in school robes. A young woman, not a girl.

And he did not want to think about it.

Percy Weasley would have a fit if he knew what Neville was trying very hard to not think about. He tried not to think about that, either.

And because he was trying so hard not to think about the new memories that were so troubling, the old ones grasped at their advantage.

They'd discussed where they were going to live, because above the Leaky was no place to raise a baby. Neville had pointed out that he still had rights to the Longbottom Estate; it was perhaps a bit larger than what Hannah was used to, but that just meant they had a lot of rooms they could fill with children, now that they'd finally worked out how to make a pregnancy stick. She had laughed at that, joked that the last few months they had fallen out of practise and would need to make up lost time once Maggie was born.

Maggie. Neville grimaced and took a long gulp from his glass. That was a name he hadn't thought of in weeks. He didn't know what he'd do when he got a student with that name. And god, if she was blonde with brown eyes...

As though summoned, the image of blonde hair splayed across the no-nonsense white linens of a hospital pillow case played in his mind, the brown eyes so tired, so scared. She was terrifyingly pale, her lips nearly colourless, and the sheer helplessness he'd felt knowing he could do nothing as his wife's life bled away steadily in a flow no one could stop -

The glass was empty, and he could not recall having poured it into his mouth but he could taste it. His eyes took a moment to catch up when he turned his head, his mind sluggish as it reconciled the movement and the vision that did not quite match. If he had any more, he'd do nothing but lie awake in a spinning room until the sky turned blue with dawn. If he went to bed now, he might be lucky enough to fall into the dreamless stupor he constantly sought, but rarely achieved.

Settling himself under the covers in the middle of the bed, he let his eyelids droop and breathing slow. He'd tried sleeping on just one side before, but found himself reaching out to the other side and panicking when he found nothing. It was easier, in the middle. It was easier, with just the single pillow. Easier to remember that the bed was empty, aside from him. Easier to swallow.

He could almost hear her. He couldn't really, he knew that, but often, just before he slipped into whatever fitful doze he could manage, he imagined he could.

"You have to move on."

"I'm trying," he whispered, nearly soundlessly. "You can't know how hard it is."

"Keep trying."

"I do. Every day."

* * *

It was either still dark or dark again when Neville sat up, blearily rubbing his eyes. The blanket fell away from his shoulder and he shivered as he squinted at the clock. It read half six, but that wasn't particularly helpful. He felt wretched enough that it could either be six in the morning or six in the evening.

Either way, his stomach complained at its neglect, and Neville threw a dressing gown over his shoulders and staggered into the kitchen. Saturday's Daily Prophet lay upon the kitchen table with various envelopes atop it; apparently it was half six in the evening, since the post owls didn't usually come until after seven in the morning. Neville nodded in grim approval; at least he wouldn't have to spend Saturday trying to figure out what to do with himself.

It was still Christmas Eve, and he would still have to figure out what to do tomorrow, but he'd work out that problem when he came to it.

The post was as he expected: Christmas cards from distant relatives he'd never met and probably wasn't actually related to in any way but on paper, an invoice from Flourish and Blotts for a book he'd ordered, and the bright green envelope he knew was an invitation to Harry's Christmas party that he threw every year. He could almost hear the conversation Harry must have had with Ginny over that:

_"Of course we have to invite him, Harry. He's one of your best friends."_

_"He just wants to be left alone. Especially this time of year."_

_"Then he doesn't have to answer. It can't hurt, him knowing he has people who want him round."_

He made as though to put the envelope to the side unopened, as he had done for the past three years, but before it dropped from his hand he changed his mind and broke the wax seal on the back instead.

_Merry Christmas!_

_As is the tradition, we are opening our doors to friends and family for Christmas dinner at four o'clock on December 25th. Please send us an owl if you'll be joining us, and bring a small gift (no more than one Galleon) if you'd like to participate in the gift exchange. _

_If you'd like to bring a dish to share, please coordinate with Ginny. We love mashed potatoes, but nobody loves eight bowls of mashed potatoes. And if you prefer a particular kind of, say, whisky, let us know so we can procure it. Percy was kind enough to let us know last year that it doesn't all taste like broom polish, but we are obviously philistines who can't tell the difference and so we have no idea what to buy._

_We're serious about the mashed potatoes. Please don't bring them, George._

_Looking forward to seeing you all, _

_Harry and Ginny_

Neville stared at the parchment for a very long time, hunger forgotten. It was true; since Hannah had died, Neville preferred to spend Christmas alone. In fact, he preferred to spend most of his time alone. He and Hannah had got married years after all their friends and had been gently teased for waiting so long to have children - they'd never made it public how difficult it had been to achieve even the one pregnancy. Seeing everyone with families of their own struck such a chord within him that it was often less painful to simply stay home and wish for what should have been. And he couldn't stand the sorrowful, pitying looks people bestowed upon him when they thought he wasn't looking.

Perhaps enough time had passed that the looks wouldn't be so ubiquitous. He'd been curled around his hurt for more than three years now, unwilling to unwind enough to let others see the wound. And so they'd kept their distance.

But he'd peen pricked with enough thorns and cut by enough razorleaf to know that a wound doesn't heal closed away from light and air. It had taken Molly's gentle pressure last night for him to fully see that it was time to let others examine it, and do what they could. It would hurt, but he'd been hurting. And when he'd been talking, it hadn't been the sharp, destructive pain of loss, but the aching bruise of memory.

Even though he was certain of his decision, his hand shook as he dipped his quill at the writing desk, and he nearly dripped ink onto the paper as he tried to chase down the words to say. The ink on the nib had nearly dried by the time he set it to the parchment.

_I can still make a mean fig pudding._

_-Neville_

* * *

It was as though he'd never left.

There were differences, of course. The last time he'd been here, the children had all been much shorter. Bill's hair had not had quite so much grey - but to be fair, neither had Neville's. Teddy had either grown a ridiculous goatee or had simply decided to wear one for the day to irritate Andromeda. And the children that could still reasonably be called children were all taller, voices had become deeper, behaviour had become more or less boisterous or genteel, and definitely different to how they behaved in his classroom.

There was a new face at the table, one that Neville did not know aside from her name, seated to Dominique's left. She had dark eyes and short curly hair and a very nervous expression, and it wasn't until Dominique laid a hand upon her wrist and smiled fondly at her that Neville realised that she was not just a friend at all. That was certainly a new development, but not exactly a surprise.

And then, of course, seated to Dominique's right and nearly across the table from Neville, there was Molly. Of all the changes at the table, she had to be the most profound. He'd never made note of it before - he was not at his most observant during his weekly forays at the Leaky - but she had somehow, inexplicably, become an adult nearly overnight. Perhaps it had been because she had never been far from Dominique at school. Dominique's Veela blood had made her seem a woman before she had been fourteen. The new Charms teacher had been hard-pressed to appear as an adult next to Dominique by her sixth year - the sixteen-year-old girls surrounding her hardly had a chance. They had been a tightly-knit bunch, Neville recalled, in the same House and year and taking most of the same classes.

Except N.E.W.T. Herbology. Molly had been the only Slytherin in his N.E.W.T. classes both years she'd taken them. Neville supposed he'd been too distracted to notice her then.

He wouldn't have noticed her anyway. She had, after all, been a student. He definitely was not noticing her now, either, not with her father sitting at her right elbow and talking animatedly with Hermione about new legislation that had recently been introduced to the Wizengamot. It was possible that there were more awkward things than having the Chief Warlock discovering someone ogling his daughter at Christmas dinner, but not likely.

Not that he was ogling.

Despite all these differences, the shape of the evening was the same as it had always been, and Neville fit into it seamlessly. There was joking and laughter, and he was surprised to find himself joining in, so startled to hear his own snorting guffaw at one of George's friendly jabs at Ron that he nearly choked on his wine. He pretended not to notice the looks of astonished relief that flickered across nearly everyone's face at that, instead focusing on his water goblet until Audrey broke the silence by asking Dominique if she'd managed to find a job yet.

Pudding had been served and they'd all transitioned to the sitting room. The liquor was brought out at last, and Neville could not help but join Percy in attempting to educate Harry and Teddy in the finer points of scotch whisky, firewhisky, and everything in between. Even after several tastes, Harry seemed unimpressed, but Teddy was proving to have quite the refined palate indeed.

"I have to say, Neville," Teddy said almost shyly, reaching out to pat Neville's upper arm, "it's good to see you smiling again."

"It really is," Harry cut in earnestly when it was apparent Neville had no idea how to respond. "We've missed you. Ginny literally did a dance when we got your owl saying you were coming."

Neville looked back and forth between the two of them, at a complete loss for words. "It was time," he said finally. He briefly thought of bringing up his metaphor about wounds and healing but quickly discarded the notion. It would sound uncharacteristically poetic coming from him, and they might think he'd lost his mind.

He was saved from having to come up with an additional response by Molly tapping her father on the shoulder. "Oi. I heard you opened the good stuff. Why wasn't I invited?" She caught Neville's eye and flushed slightly before looking back to her father.

"She can have mine," Harry said magnanimously, handing her his glass before anyone could object. Bemused, Molly took the glass, then shrugged and smelled it.

"Glenkinschie," Neville supplied. "Not my favourite, but it's drinkable."

"Too drinkable," Teddy said, blinking hard before handing the rest of his glass to Percy. "Thanks for the lesson, you guys. I'll want some more, but I have something I need to do before I get too pissed to say it properly."

"What?" Percy asked blankly, but Teddy had already flashed an insufferably smug grin and headed to the middle of the room.

"All right, everyone, can I have your attention?" he called in a loud voice. "And Victoire, if you'll come here?" he asked in a much softer tone, a smile touching his eyes.

Teddy was fiddling with something in his pocket. Neville felt his face go stiff as it dawned on him what was about to happen. His gut instinct was to escape, to relocate himself to anywhere but here, because there was a very large distinction between letting a wound get some air and salting it. He forced himself to take a breath and a sip of scotch. He'd known Teddy since before the boy could speak. He could stay and witness this for him.

"Tori," Teddy said as Victoire stepped forward, luminous in the lamplight of the sitting room. He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand. "I..." Teddy laughed suddenly, looking around the room. "I had a speech. It was all planned. But I'll be damned if I can remember a word of it now. So..."

He dropped to one knee and there was a collection of gasps from around the room. Through sheer force of will, Neville plastered a smile on his face, trying to ignore what felt like a tonne of bricks settling on his chest.

Teddy drew the tiny box from his pocket and opened it, his face shining with the earnestness of love. "Victoire, will you marry me?"

Neville did not hear Victoire's response, but it was obvious what she was going to say. No one ever said no. Well, Hannah had the first time, but it hadn't been a no, exactly, and she'd said yes the second time around. There hadn't been a crowd around, like there were now - people rushing forward to hug or clap the newly affianced couple on the shoulders. Everyone had started talking at once, and no one noticed as Neville slipped out of the room and through the back hallway door into the small garden out behind the house.

It was quiet. A lamp on a pole sensed his presence and sputtered to life, throwing blue shadows against the brick of the back of the house. Neville eased himself down onto a stone bench, his lips twitching in the tiniest of self-deprecating smiles when he saw he was still clutching his glass of scotch. What that said about him, he didn't want to ponder. He did not drink, but stared into the depths of the amber liquid, keeping his mind carefully blank as his heartbeat slowed from its staccato of earlier.

He did not look up when the door opened and clicked shut, nor did he look up when she sat down next to him on the bench. He could not say why he'd been expecting her, but he had.

"It must be hard," Molly said after several minutes of silence. "Watching other people get to be happy."

"It is, sometimes," Neville admitted, not taking his eyes from the scotch. "But they deserve to be. I don't begrudge them that, it's just... difficult to be around." He took a deep breath and chanced a glance to the side. "I'll go in and congratulate them properly in a bit. I... needed a moment."

Molly nodded. "Do you want me to go back inside?"

No. He really didn't. "You can stay, if you'd like. I'm afraid I won't be very good company."

"You're the one who needs company, not me." She stated it matter-of-factly, and Neville wondered just how obvious he was being. Rather than respond and muddy the already murky waters even more, he cleared his throat and lapsed into silence once more.

"It was your wedding anniversary yesterday. Spencer told me." There was a bittersweet pang that plucked something deep within Neville's chest, but he nodded. "What was it like?"

"The wedding?" He could not help but smile, just a little. "Nonexistent. I'd proposed the first time when we were twenty. She was always smarter than me, and said we should wait until I was done with Auror training." He wished he'd thought to bring a glass of water rather than scotch. "That went pear-shaped rather quickly - the training, rather. I cycled through a few Herbology research jobs at the Ministry until I was asked to teach at Hogwarts. Right about then was when she became landlady of the Leaky. I realised then that we were pushing thirty and I'd completely forgotten to ask her to marry me again. So I dug around for a bit and found the ring and the first night of Christmas holidays, I asked her."

He took a moment to swallow, eyes staring into the middle distance. He could still see her in his mind's eye, if he tried. She'd even put on a dress. He hadn't known she _owned_ a dress. "And we decided we didn't want to wait. We didn't want a wedding. So we called all our friends the next night and tied the knot right then and there on the hearth of the Leaky." An exhalation that could almost have been a laugh escaped from his nose. "It was your father who officiated, in fact. He was the only person we knew who could do it."

"I think I remember that," Molly said slowly. "I wasn't there, but I remember Mum and Dad very suddenly needing to get a sitter, and Dad was putting on his good robes."

"That was probably it." Neville nodded and shifted the glass of scotch to his other hand; the one he'd been holding it with had got very cold in the winter night air.

"Do you think you'll ever remarry?" Neville jerked slightly at the question and looked over at Molly in slight disbelief. She seemed just as shocked that the question had come about. "I'm sorry. I - I never think before I -"

"It's all right." Neville sighed to calm his suddenly rattled nerves, watching the fog of breath dissipate as he exhaled. "She wanted me to. She told me." They were approaching dangerous territory, and Neville looked down at the liquor in his hand, wondering if he'd need it. "She knew she was dying before the Healers would admit it, and before I would accept it. She said..." He remembered the words exactly, but... they'd been his for so long. Only his.

He felt the familiar stinging at the corners of his eyes and he reached up to brush away the tears before they had a chance to fall. "She didn't want me to go through the world alone. She wanted me to promise I'd find someone." His throat ached with tears he refused to shed, and he swallowed hard. "I couldn't promise her that. I was sure, so sure that she'd get up and everything would be okay. But she didn't, and it wasn't."

Somewhere on the road in front of the house, a car door slammed. Neville took a deep, shaking breath and closed his eyes. A moment, and he'd be fine. He'd just never put these things into words before, had never said them. It was like drawing poison out of a sting: it hurt coming out but everything would heal faster.

He nearly jumped clean out of his skin when he felt a timid touch on the back of his upper arm, running up and down it in a reassuring motion. He turned his head to look at her, acclimating himself. He was not used to being touched. Aside from handshakes and the occasional quick, friendly embrace, he'd not had any lingering contact with anyone for longer than he cared to count. He hadn't just avoided it, he'd actively discouraged it.

He thought about shifting politely to get away. Surely that would be less insulting than cringing away. But he saw her eyes, and saw the desperate need to do something comforting behind them, and so he did neither, and let her continue. Nor did he look away. Her eyes were dark honeyed brown, and she had a smattering of the typical Weasley freckles across her nose and cheeks that stood out against the pink flush of cold.

Irrationally, he found himself yearning to reach out and brush a thumb across those freckles, hand going to the curve where her jaw met her neck, tipping her face upwards and pulling her towards him - which was, quite possibly, the worst urge in the history of the known universe. He was unprepared and unsure he even wanted that kind of interaction with anyone, let alone the girl not even half his age sitting next to him on the bench, her father literally a stone's throw away...

No. If he was honest with himself, he _was_ sure he wanted it. It wasn't just some reflexive compulsion. And that unsettled him more than it had any right to.

Molly had not ceased the comforting rubbing of his arm, even though he had to have tensed somewhat. Slowly, as though he might frighten them both by moving quickly, he twisted slightly on the bench to face her more, reaching out with a hand he felt should be trembling to rest it on her upper arm.

Her lips parted slightly in astonishment, and uncertainty flashed across her face. Neville felt her shiver and her soothing motion faltered, just a bit, and the utter surprise with which she reacted made him lose whatever nerve he'd managed to gather.

"You're cold," he said, startling himself with the sound of his voice. "We should get you back inside."

Molly blinked. "Oh. Yes."

They rose wordlessly from the bench. It was barely three steps to the door, and walking across the garden felt like snapping from a waking dream back into the cold reality of the real world. He held the door for her and followed her into the radiant warmth of the house.

By some grace of luck, no one appeared to notice them rejoining the party in the sitting room except Hermione, who had an arm full of glasses and was taking them back to the kitchen. She glanced between the two of them, her face carefully composed. Molly flushed and slipped past her to rejoin Dominique over by the fire. Hermione watched her go and arched an eyebrow at Neville which said, as plain as day, "Oh, really?"

Neville furrowed his brow in answer, an unspoken "of course not." The accompanying tiny shake of his head hopefully underscored the negation. Hermione shrugged and sidled past him toward the kitchen. He let her by and found his eyes seeking out Molly, silhouetted against the fire, listening to Dominique and Victoire chatter excitedly with a pensive look on her face.

Of course not. That would be as ridiculous as Hermione's expression had implied. He was more than twice her age, and he'd watched her grown up, had taught her in school. And that was quite aside from the fact that asking anyone to put up with him, when everything still reminded him of Hannah...

Of course not.

Neville made his farewells as hastily as possible, congratulated the newly engaged couple, and left. He did not say goodbye to Molly. He told himself it was because he did not want to interrupt the excited conversation she was currently in, and if he repeated it enough times to himself, he might actually begin to believe it.

It was still early, but Neville felt more exhausted than he had in a very long time. It was not until he snuffed the candle with a negligent wave and settled his head into the pillow that he realised he had not poured himself a drink upon returning home. He hadn't even wanted one. He drifted off to sleep before he puzzled out why that may be.


	3. Three

The week would go down as one of the coldest in London's history; it did not snow much, but the cold was such that it squeezed every last bit of moisture from every surface and froze it every morning, covering everything in an ethereal layer of crackling ice that seldom melted by the time the sun went down. Molly was dimly aware of the havoc this was wreaking on the heating bills of her neighbours in her mostly Muggle neighbourhood, but the farthest it went toward affecting her was the way she nearly froze to her broomstick each evening as she came home from the Leaky.

On Wednesday, her lips had been blue and her teeth had chattered so violently that her father - who was seldom still awake when she got back from work - vowed he would finally look into expanding their fireplace to make Floo travel possible. He'd fetched her a hot cup of tea and a blanket and then sat down with her as she warmed up, which was rather strange and unexpected: the Wizengamot was out of session for the last week of the year, but her father still went into the office most mornings and it was a good deal past midnight.

"How are you enjoying the job?" he asked, sipping from his own cup.

"Well, it's not the Ministry," Molly responded, "but for what it is, it's good. I mean, it pays decently enough, and it's fun, most nights. I meet a lot of people. I know most of the regulars by name now. If I don't find anything better, Spencer says he'll teach me how to tend bar, if I want."

"Spencer's the landlord?" her father asked.

"No, he's just the barman. The landlord doesn't really run the place." Molly hesitated. "It still belongs to Professor Longbottom."

"Really? I thought he'd sold it ages ago." Her father reached up to rub his chin. "Does he still have anything to do with the place?"

"I'm not sure. He's there every Friday, but not for anything business-related. Unless you count making sure that the extra-special firewhisky still tastes good."

"Oh?" Her father's eyes narrowed slightly. "That sounds... less than good."

"It's only a glass," Molly added hurriedly. "And he nurses it all night. He's..." she stopped, wondering if she should reveal what she knew. It was not a secret, precisely, but it had still been something they'd shared, a moment of social intimacy that she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to divulge. "He's remembering," she finished simply.

Her father nodded slowly, finishing off his tea. "Ron told me Longbottom took it hard, his wife's death. Christmas was the first I'd seen him since then. He looks a lot different to how he used to."

Molly stared into her tea thoughtfully. He looked different to her, too, but she was not certain whether it was because she was looking at him in the context of an adult as compared to her teacher, or because he was a different person from when she had last known him at the end of seventh year.

"I think I'm going to finish thawing out in my bed," she said finally. "Tomorrow's Friday, which means a late night."

"Good night, then." Her father stood as well, then paused, as though considering something. "He's a good man. I might ask him around to ours sometime. He seems like he could use company that doesn't remind him of his wife."

It was with extreme effort that Molly did not swallow nervously. "He likes remembering her, actually. I think he's just now learning that remembering doesn't have to hurt." Her father shot her an odd look, and she found herself explaining. "We've been talking. He likes talking about her; at least I think he does. It just seems like no one wants to take the time to listen to him."

The look he was giving her now was somehow appraising, as though he'd heard much more than she'd actually said. She supposed it was something of an occupational hazard. "Well, don't make yourself a nuisance. Leave him be if he doesn't want to talk."

"I will. G'night, Dad."

Despite the exhaustion that seeped into her bones as she finally got warm, sleep eluded her. That knowing look, as though she'd revealed something - she hadn't revealed anything. They'd been talking, and Neville enjoyed the company. As did she. That was all.

She wondered who she was trying so hard to convince.

* * *

Friday night was always busy, but Molly had not been prepared for the influx of revellers who were, as far as she could tell, practising for the New Year's Eve festivities tomorrow night. She imagined that tomorrow night it would be even more hectic, the crowd even more boisterous, and she wondered for the third time at her sanity for volunteering to work. It wasn't that she minded missing the festivities - the parties her school friends were throwing appealed to her very little, and Dominique would be spending time with Sarah, which was not something she would dream of interfering with. It was more that if New Year's Eve was anything like tonight was, she wasn't sure she'd survive the evening with her mind intact.

"Three Gillywaters, one with orange, one with ginger, and a 'something fruity, surprise me'," Molly called to Spencer as she leaned against the bar. "I dare you to put a little umbrella in the last."

Spencer flashed her a quick grin as he went to work. "Table nine looks like they'll be up for another round soon. And eleven could use a few waters; they're starting to slow down." His smile faltered slightly as his eyes flicked to the corner, and he nodded in that direction. "Looks like you'll need to go take care of seventeen again."

Molly spun to face the booth in the corner, where three witches had settled in and started chatting amiably. "I'm on it." Molly flicked another glance at the clock. Keeping that booth empty for another two hours on a busy night like this was going to be a challenge.

"I'm very sorry," she said sweetly to the three witches at the booth, "but this table is reserved."

"I don't see a sign," one of them said haughtily, while another straightened self-importantly and pointed out that the Leaky did not take reservations.

"I'd be more than happy to clear a table for you, ladies, but this booth needs to stay empty." To her great relief, four wizards at the opposite corner booth had just tossed a handful of coins on their table and stood to leave. "That table, in fact. How about I take your drink orders and they'll be ready by the time you've settled in?"

The witches made a great show of being horribly put upon, but acquiesced. Molly pocketed the coins from the table, hurriedly cleared it with her wand, and went back to the bar.

"Three starfruit daiquiris, and I'll be right back - kitchen order - and we'll probably wan to put a 'reserved' sign on Ne - on Professor Longbottom's booth."

Spencer raised an amused eyebrow at Molly's slip, and she flushed and turned away.

Time was no longer measured by seconds and minutes, but rather by tray after tray of drinks and food. The cold that was threatening to topple Muggle commerce seemed to have little sway in the warm common room, and the crowd did not thin appreciably as the evening lurched forward in plates of chips and one drink after another.

There was finally a lull in which everyone had their drinks, no one needed any food, and Molly had a moment to lean against the bar and catch her breath. "Merlin," she gasped, "where do they all come from?"

"No idea," Spencer said lightly as he pushed a tumbler across the bar. "But I think you should take this over tonight."

Molly stared stupidly at the tumbler for a moment before it dawned on her. She did not spin around to look at booth seventeen, but it was a very near thing. "He's early."

Spencer just shrugged and turned his back, whistling.

"You usually take this to him," she protested, ignoring the heat that was rising in her cheeks.

"And tonight, you should." There was nothing in his tone to indicate that Spencer was grinning, but it was clear in the way he held his shoulders that he was amused about something. "He's been there about ten minutes. I'm surprised you didn't notice him before."

Molly was, too, but Spencer seemed far too entertained for that to be it. She decided not to press the matter and grabbed the tumbler.

"Good evening," she said smoothly as she placed it in front of Neville. "We weren't expecting you for a little while longer. I'm sorry this wasn't waiting for you."

"Am I really that predictable?" Neville asked dryly.

"I - about this, yes," Molly stammered, not positive what the correct answer was. Apparently that was it, because it earned a rare smile.

"Don't worry about it. I thought I might have to wait for a table tonight." He looked down at the tumbler for firewhisky, almost appearing to withdraw from the light and noise of the common room.

Molly knew what was supposed to happen next. She was to bid him good night and leave him be until closing. She was not supposed to check back with him, was in fact supposed to ignore his booth entirely for the duration of the night.

Instead, without really knowing why, she reached out and squeezed his shoulder lightly. He started and looked up, bewildered. Suddenly shy, Molly swallowed. "I'll come check on you in a bit. Unless you'd rather I leave you alone...?

"No, I... that is, it looks busy tonight. I wouldn't want to keep you from your work."

That was not an outright no. "Maybe if it slows down and my slave driver of a boss lets me have a break." She jerked her head in the direction of the bar, and Neville glanced over; his expression changed swiftly from bemusement to embarrassment, the flicker of which he tried to hide with a hasty sip of his firewhisky. Molly turned, but Spencer had obviously stopped what he had been doing and was pulling glassware off the shelves far too nonchalantly to be completely innocent.

"If you get a moment, I wouldn't say no," Neville said slowly as she turned back around. Molly was astonished to see colour creeping into his cheeks. The firewhisky, she told herself, flashing a smile in farewell and preparing to make her rounds of the tables.

"I need a Butterbeer, a ginger vodka on the rocks, and a Roaster," she told Spencer some time later. "And what the hell kind of look did you shoot the Professor that he turned nine shades of red?"

"Don't know what you're talking about." Spencer plunked a pint of golden ale on the bar. "That's for twelve, on the house."

"Were you listening?" Molly demanded, reaching out to take the flagon of ale.

"Right, I can eavesdrop on a conversation happening all the way across the pub on a busy night." Pausing for a moment to look around, Spencer leaned closer. "You nearly used his given name. Now, you're not presumptuous enough to do that unless he'd given you permission, and he doesn't give that permission to just anyone." He stood back, a triumphant look on his face, and reached for a dishrag to wipe his hands. "And his eyes lit up when he walked in and saw you. He stood a little straighter. Only for a moment. But it was there."

"What exactly are you saying?" A knot twisted in her chest that made it hard to breathe; Molly was not entirely sure where it had come from.

Spencer's usually bright face was very serious. "I don't know what's between you and him, and it's none of my business if there's anything there or not. But he's never early. Ever. Seems to me like he wanted to be here tonight for something other than the comfort of routine." He threaded the dishrag in his hands through its hook near the sink. "I aim to encourage this sort of behaviour. It's been too long since I've seen anything but blankness or pain on his face."

Not entirely sure what her reaction was supposed to be, Molly turned hurriedly with the pint of ale. She imagined she could feel Spencer's gaze on her back as she made her way to table twelve; she couldn't even remember what the patron had said upon receiving the free drink. Studiously, she did not shoot a glance over at the corner booth. She did not know what she would do if she were to look over to see Neville's eyes on her. Swallow her own tongue, probably.

Why was her emotional state so obvious to everyone but her? Everyone else was so certain what she was feeling, but the gnarl within her was such a tempest that she couldn't separate the strands of feelings if she tried. Why did she have to feel everything at once whenever he crossed her mind? And why did everyone else translate it as some sort of infatuation, when _she_ wasn't even convinced what it was?

He was not looking at her as she made her way through the tables. He looked like he did every Friday, contemplating the tabletop, his eyes soft and distant, his posture hunched and drawn inward. It was not an expression or body language that invited company, and when Spencer waved at her to take her break an hour later, Molly's stomach tightened at the notion of breaking Neville's trancelike concentration. Perhaps he'd changed his mind. Perhaps it would be a better idea to leave him to his thoughts tonight.

Given her trepidation, Molly was surprised to find herself approaching the booth with a glass of water in either hand. She stood at the edge of it for a moment before Neville appeared to notice her shadow and look up.

"Molly." So neutral. What did that mean?

"I brought you some water," Molly said uselessly, indicating the glasses she was carrying. She hesitated. "Can... can I sit?"

"Yes. Absolutely." Neville gestured at the space across from him in the booth, and Molly sank down, making a noise of appreciation.

"Merlin, it's good to sit. I've been on my feet for nearly four hours."

"It's busier than I've seen it in a long time," Neville agreed, craning his neck to look around at the patrons still in the pub.

"It's the New Year crowd," Molly said. "It'll be even busier tomorrow night, Spencer says."

"And you're working tomorrow night?" Seeming to realise how this question sounded, Neville raised the glass of water to his lips, as though to minimise the impact of the words.

"It seems like I work every night. It's not so bad - but I am a bit sad to be missing my uncles' fireworks." She nearly winced. That sounded so childish.

But Neville's face had shifted into a nostalgic expression. "It's been years since I've gone to the fireworks. George and Ron know how to put on a show."

Molly nodded. "And they outdo themselves every year. But last year I was in America, and the year before I had a terrible flu. It feels like it's been entirely too long, and I'm so close this year - but I don't think I'll be able to see them from the windows."

Neville looked thoughtful for a moment, taking another long sip of water. Their conversation dissolved into the tumult of the pub around them, and for a time the rhythm of the talking and laughing around them was the only thing that kept their private silence from growing into too great a rift.

"Don't mind Spencer," Neville said suddenly. "He's trying to look out for - well, for everybody, and he can get a little... overzealous."

Bemused, Molly glanced over at the barman. "What do you mean?"

Neville drew his finger through the ring of condensation his glass of water had left on the table, not looking up to meet her eyes. "I imagine he told you to stay away from me."

Molly's tongue suddenly felt very dry, and she took another sip of water. "He told me the opposite, actually. I think."

"Really?" Neville looked surprised, his brows curving downward in befuddlement as he also glanced toward the bar. "Interesting," was all he said after an extended beat of silence.

"My father told me not to be a nuisance." Now why had she said that? The back of her neck was suddenly very warm, and she swallowed, resisting the urge to take another drink of water to cover her discomfiture. "I'm a bad judge at when I'm being irritating, so you'll have to let me know."

Neville chuckled, and the sound felt like warm honey, relaxing her shoulders in ways she hadn't known were tense. "Molly, you are far from a nuisance. I promise."

"Still. Let me know. I don't want to be..." She didn't know what word to use to finish her thought. What didn't she want to be? There were so many qualifiers she could put in that blank. She did not want to be a bother. She did not want to be a nag. And, possibly more than anything else, she did not want to be the little girl with a crush that he tolerated. As that thought surfaced in her mind, she pressed her lips together, looking down at the table. Was that what she was? After all, fancying Professor Longbottom had practically been a rite of passage in school; she'd thought she'd escaped that cliché unscathed, but if her racing pulse had any say in the matter...

"You're not."

At his voice, Molly looked up. His eyes were not the piercing, no-nonsense eyes of Professor Longbottom; they were softer, more familiar. More intimate. They were darker in this light, green instead of hazel. He didn't even know what he was denying, and she believed him.

She did not know why that gaze frightened her. It was not the gaze of a professor upon a student, or even an older man upon someone younger. He was looking at her as an equal.

"I should get back to work," she found herself saying, swinging her legs to the side to exit the booth.

"You haven't eaten," Neville protested.

"Oh, I - I'm not hungry." She stood, straightening her apron unnecessarily. "Thank you. For letting me sit here."

He looked puzzled. "Of course. Anytime."

"I'm going to hold you to that." Curse her tongue to seven hells, why had she said that?

For the smile, she immediately decided. The smile that her quip had drawn, however brief, was worth a thousand thoughtless moments of letting her mouth run before her mind.

Her shift turned back into intervals between trays of drinks and food, of aching feet and too many people demanding her attention, until she slumped against a beam for a moment and closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. Spencer saw that - Spencer always saw when she had reached her limit - and decreed that she'd done three nights of work in six hours and it was past time she went home. He could manage, he assured her. He needed her for tomorrow night, and he would need her to not be a zombie.

She put up a token resistance, but it was not long before she'd fetched her broomstick from the cabinet and buttoned on her thick wool cloak, dreading facing the crisp, bitter weather and of half a mind to just rent a room for the evening. Stepping from the warm common room was nearly enough to take her breath away, and - not for the first time - she wished she had a warming charm on the handle of her broom.

"Cold, yeah?"

Molly nearly jumped straight out of her skin as she spun to face the door behind her. "Cripes, Neville. You startled me."

Neville chuckled, again, and if Molly hadn't been so busy shivering she may have even swooned. Which was completely inappropriate. Grown women did not swoon, certainly not at just a chuckle. "That much is obvious. Would you like a quicker way home?"

It took a moment for his offer to permeate her mind. "You don't usually leave for at least another hour."

He looked almost embarrassed. "I don't think I'll stay tonight. Too busy. I'm taking up a table." He looked as though he wanted to say more, but if he did, the words remained in his mind, and she'd never know what they were.

"It is cold," she admitted.

"It is. Would you let me take you home?"

How could her face feel so warm in such frigid temperatures? "If you insist."

"I think I do." He offered his arm and, dismounting from her broom, she took it. The warmth beneath her fingers only stoked the fire she felt in her cheeks and somewhere deep in her core, flaring to life in a way that stole her breath and was not quelled even by the horrific compression of the Apparition that followed.

She did not want to let go of his arm. It was solid, flexing just slightly beneath her touch, and she wanted to tighten her grip and draw herself closer. Closer to the warmth, closer to the essence of - something - that seemed to radiate outward from him.

She let her arm drop and swallowed. "Thank you."

There was the tiniest flicker of - was that disappointment? "You're welcome. Um, if you want... I can just bring you home on Friday nights. We can consider it a standing offer."

Molly licked her lips. "I don't want to be a bother -"

"I told you. You're not."

She needed to get inside. She needed to be alone, where she could examine the myriad emotions flooding her body without distraction. "I'll let you know. Thank you. Happy New Year."

He blinked. "Happy New Year."

He reached out to squeeze her shoulder. He looked surprised that he did. Like last week, the snow swirled as he Disapparated, and like last week, Molly watched the snow settle after he had.

She watched the space where he'd been for a long time, until her shivers were nearly convulsions and she turned toward the front door.

* * *

Midnight drew nearer, drink by drink, tray by tray.

Molly barely had time to breathe. Spencer had had another server come in for this evening, and between the two of them they could barely keep the common room satisfied.

There was a table of wizards in the corner that had grown progressively grabbier as the night went on and their tab grew, until one of them openly reached out and grasped at her chest as she went by. He missed - his aim had deteriorated after nearly a dozen helpings of gin and tonic - but the slap she had delivered had echoed throughout the entire pub.

Not long after, Spencer had called her into the back room.

"I'm sorry," she apologised, though she wasn't sorry at all, "I know I'm not supposed to - I mean, I know I'm supposed to bring it to you to take care of -"

Spencer looked bemused for a moment. "No. You handled that beautifully. I should have cut them off an hour ago. No, I mean - I'm giving you an early night."

Her jaw must have been hanging open for some time before Molly noticed. "You can't be serious. I went home early last night. This is one of the busiest nights of the year - you need me -"

"I have Olivia," Spencer said firmly. "And you have a visitor."

Molly stared blankly. "I have a what?"

Spencer leaned over to look at the state of the common room for a moment. "A pub has a soul," he said absently. "Any good barman can feel it. The Leaky used to have a solid one. A soul folks could count on. Since Hannah died... well, that soul's been... subdued."

"O...kay?" Molly said slowly.

"The soul's waking back up." Spencer shook his head. "Molly, he hasn't come on a Saturday since... I can't even remember when. And on this night, in particular..."

"You're not making any sense." He was making perfect sense, somewhere deep in her mind where ultimate truths lived.

"I can get by with Olivia. You have a visitor."

And with that, he pushed by her to go back to the bar.

She should not have been surprised to see Neville upon entering the common room. Spencer had as much as shouted his name. And yet, when her eyes lighted upon him, her stomach swooped and her breath caught in her throat.

He looked almost nervous as he strode across the common room. Her mind didn't seem to be working properly; one moment he was at the door, the next he was beside her.

"You'll want your cloak," he said, the bluff casualness of it marred only slightly by his hesitant tone. "It's cold out there."

"Out... no, it's too crowded out there," she said faintly. Why was she objecting? What was she objecting to?

The crooked smile he flashed her made her heart skip a beat. "Not where we're going."

She could not remember going to get her cloak, or buttoning it. In the common room, busy and lit with blazing hearth fires as it was, it was too much, and she felt like a bonfire herself.

"This way." He gestured expansively at the doorway - not to the back and the entrance to Diagon Alley, but the stairs to the upper floors of the building.

Stairs. For a wild moment she thought maybe he was taking her to a room, but no - that was absolutely ridiculous. Intrigued, she climbed, Neville slightly behind her.

The Leaky Cauldron had three floors aside from the ground floor, but he took her up four flights - there was a door that he unlocked with an intricate brass key, and the cold outside was like a wall as he swung the door open to reveal the rooftop.

"Are we supposed to be up here?" she whispered as she stepped through the doorway, snow and ice crunching under her feet against the clay roofing tiles.

That smile. He seemed freer with them around her, as though they weren't a precious commodity. "I kind of own the building. It's okay."

He took a few steps, ice cracking beneath his feet. "I used to bring everyone up here. I hate being jostled around in crowds - and up here, the fireworks are fantastic." He turned to look at her, and in the dark she could almost imagine him being - well, young. Excited. Exuberant. "Harry proposed to Ginny up here. And Hermione told Ron she was pregnant up here. This place has a lot of memories."

It felt as though a great hand had closed around her throat. "I... why did you bring me up here?"

Neville seemed to deflate slightly. "The fireworks. You wanted to see them. So did I. And this is the best place for it." He cleared his throat and gestured toward one of the chimneys that protruded from the roof. "If we get cold, those are lovely to lean against. And there are no crowds. You... I thought you were worried about that."

She could see the crowd beneath them - a sea of hair, mostly, shifting with the patterns of people trying to get from one place to another through people who were perfectly satisfied being where they were. "It's perfect," she said softly. "I - I just worry that I'm... intruding."

"On what?" Neville looked around. "There isn't much here to intrude upon."

"Your memories." She turned to face him, heart thundering. "This was... is... a special place. I don't belong here."

For a moment he looked taken aback. "I get to decide that. And tonight, you belong here."

Below, the susurrus of the crowd became a fevered murmur, and at the end of the long cobblestone walk, a great 60 made of purple sparks manifested, accompanied by a wave of cheers.

"I didn't realise midnight was so close," Molly breathed.

"We got up here just in time, then," Neville said, taking a step to be next to her.

Next to her. The heat she could feel on her right side had to be pure imagination - it was not possible that simple body heat would be able to cross a space so far. She was startlingly aware of where he was - not just where he was standing, but where he was in relation to her, where his hands were, how far he was in centimetres and miles from touching her.

_49_

_48_

"No one can see us up here," she said suddenly.

For a moment he opened his mouth as though to answer, but instead he snapped it shut and dug his hands into the pockets of his cloak.

_45_

_44_

_43_

She shifted her feet, the angle of the roof awkward to stand on in one position for any amount of time. For a terrifying moment she nearly lost her balance until a steadying hand caught at her upper arm."Be careful. It's icy up here."

He didn't let go. She didn't move, in case it reminded him he was still holding her and wasn't intending to.

_38_

_37_

"How many people have you brought up here?" Molly asked, not tearing her eyes from the bright purple numbers.

"Not many," Neville responded. His voice sounded... doubtful. "Just the important ones."

_31_

_30_

_29_

_28_

"So am I important?"

_25_

_24_

"I think you might be."

_20_

_19_

_18_

Molly was fairly certain that Neville could hear her heart beating a staccato against her ribs, even over the chanting of the crowd below. Their breaths puffed white smoke against the clear, sharp air that enveloped them.

She did not feel the cold. She could not feel anything except the imaginary heat to her right.

_10_

_9_

"You know," she said, and she was very proud that her voice was not shaking at all, "it's customary to kiss someone at midnight. For good luck in the new year."

_8_

_7_

She did not steal a glance out of the corner of her eye; that would have been childish. Instead she turned completely to face the man holding her arm.

Her timing had been perfect. She had not left him any time to think, to consider what she'd said; there was only time enough for it to register. His lips parted slightly in astonishment as he looked down at her, one side of his face in dark shadow, the other illuminated by the purple numbers in the sky.

_3_

_2_

"I..." he began uselessly.

_1_

There was a deafening harmonic whistle as five rockets shot up into the sky, and for a split second Molly worried that she'd been entirely wrong. She'd missed the optimal moment, she'd given him a second to think about it and feel guilty and -

As the rockets exploded in a cascade of red and gold and silver sparks, a hand went to the nape of her neck, cradling the back of her head. And then he was holding her against him, lips pressed against hers, shaming the blooms of colour in the sky above them with an intensity and fervour that she'd imagined could only exist in books, in music, in art.


End file.
